1. Held of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to lawn sprinklers, and, more particularly, to an improved adjustable lawn sprinkler particularly adapted for watering a user-defined area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many homeowners take great pride in a well-manicured lawn. Although there are many factors involved with keeping a well-manicured lawn, an extremely important factor includes proper lawn irrigation. Many homeowners rely on lawn sprinklers for irrigating their lawns, and there are several different types of lawn sprinklers available to homeowners.
However, the typical lawn sprinkler is designed to irrigate a lawn in an arcuate or semi-arcuate pattern. Since most lawns take on a generally rectangular or square shape, the arcuate or semi-arcuate irrigation pattern becomes a problem and does not efficiently irrigate a homeowner's lawn. If only one lawn sprinkler is used, the lawn sprinkler must be repeatedly transferred to new areas in order to irrigate the entire area of the lawn. Further, since the irrigation pattern is arcuate or semi-arcuate by design, water is likely to be dispersed outside of the rectangular or square shape of the lawn resulting in wasted water. A user can eliminate the problem of transferring a single lawn sprinkler to various areas by utilizing a plurality of lawn sprinklers arranged in an overlapping fashion to cover the entire area of the lawn. Although this removes the need for transferring, this tends to increase the amount of wasted water due to the overlapping, as well as still dispersing water outside of the typical lawn boundary.
A different type of lawn sprinkler, an oscillating-type lawn sprinkler, is designed to irrigate lawns in a rectangular or square shape. These are beneficial when dealing with truly rectangular or square shaped lawns, but require the sprinkler itself to be placed in the middle of the lawn and then removed for mowing. Furthermore oscillating-type lawn sprinklers irrigate in a rectangular pattern, and are strictly limited to dispersing water within that rectangular or square geometry and are not beneficial for irregularly shaped lawn areas.
Other attempts have been made to produce lawn sprinklers with non-circular irrigation patterns, and these attempts usually involve modifying a standard impulse sprinkler. Standard impulse sprinklers have been modified by changing the vertical spray angle while rotating the nozzle of the lawn sprinkler, or by varying the flow rate while the sprinkler rotates, in an attempt to alter the range of the jet. Although a non-circular irrigation pattern is produced, the irrigation pattern tends to be unpredictable and cannot be varied sufficiently to water a square or rectangular area.
What has not yet existed is an improved adjustable lawn sprinkler that can provide an irrigation pattern to an irregularly shaped or rectilinear area of a lawn from a single point outside that lawn, reducing wasted water while applying a uniform amount of water to that specific area of the lawn, and avoiding the need to remove the sprinkler for mowing.
Consequently, a need has been felt for providing an improved adjustable lawn sprinkler particularly adapted for watering a user-defined area from a single location anywhere within or outside that area.